The question comes up frequently: how many times per week is best for posting on social media? And like so much associated with effective marketing, the answer is that it depends.
When deciding on a posting frequency for your Facebook and/or LinkedIn business pages, it is important to start with why you are posting. Some people think that the goal of posting is only to gain likes and followers, and that if you are not increasing your reported engagement numbers, that you are not getting value for your postings.
But if your likes and followers for your business page are coming from friends and family, and not from potential clients or business referrers, then this type of engagement is not really creating value for your business.
On the other hand, if potential clients are visiting your Facebook and/or LinkedIn business pages as part of their decision process for whether or not to hire your company, then having good-quality postings that are posted consistently can be very valuable for strongly expressing and supporting your brand . . . even if you have very few likes.
As such, your decision for how often to post on social media depends on what you are trying to accomplish with your social media strategy. Below are three example strategies:
QUICKLY FILL TIMELINE
You never want your Facebook business page to look like an abandoned amusement park. That is, you may have posted in the past, but now have nothing new on your timeline for a while, or you have not ever posted much at all.
If the recent timeline on your Facebook business page is fairly empty, a good initial strategy could be to make a good-quality post every day.
By posting every day, your timeline can quickly become filled. Of course, if a potential client or business referrer takes the time to scroll down a bit, they might notice that your posts are all fairly recent. But if you have good-quality posts that are interesting to read and which encourage clicking links to learn more, then visitors will likely not scroll down more than a few swipes.
After your timeline starts to fill up, you can then consider a more sustained strategy, such as whether you want to maintain your presence or to gain followers.
MAINTAIN PRESENCE
If your Facebook timeline already is fairly well populated and your goal is to maintain your social media presence, then posting 2-3 times per week is a nice fit.
Posting 2-3 times per week shows good activity, without being a turnoff to potential followers who don't want to be hit with too many posts per week. However, if you are fortunate to be in a business or industry that is going through significant change, then of course you may even want to post multiple times per day to keep up with the news and impacts. But for a more steady-state business situation, an activity level of 2-3 times per week is adequate for maintaining your social media presence.
GAIN FOLLOWERS
As above, if you are past the need to merely fill up your empty timeline and your business is relatively steady-state, but your goal is to pursue followers and likes, then posting only 1-2 times per week can work in your favor.
This level of good-quality posting allows potential followers to keep up with you, without being barraged by too many posts each week. And as such, this can encourage visitors to choose to add you as a business that will be helpful for them to follow.
Each business situation is unique, and optimization requires trial and adjustments. Hopefully the above will serve as a good guide for where to get started.
